Nair's first new work since her poorly received 2009 biopic Amelia, about the aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, the movie is based on Mohsin Hamid's novel and stars British actor Riz Ahmed as a young Pakistani man working on Wall Street in September, 2001. When terrorists strike the World Trade Center, his bright future is shattered along with his belief system, reports Deadline.

Festival director Alberto Barbera said Nair, who won Venice's Golden Lion in 2001 for Monsoon Wedding, had "made an exemplary film adaptation of a novel that deals with the topical issue of fundamentalisms of any kind or nature". It will be the Indian film-maker's fifth film to screen at the festival, but the first to open it.